The U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia has created a webpage of public information on the Guantanamo Bay cases.  Find the court schedule, court orders and opinions, and press releases and notices.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, the trial of Osama Bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, began about 10 days ago, as reported on NPR.  In 2006, Yale law students worked closely with Mr. Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, a YLS grad, in his challenge of the use of military commissions; they were victorious.  As a result,  Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Another Guantanamo prisoner, Omar Khadr, has been in the news recently as a result of the release of a videotaped interrogation conducted on the island.  The video was released by Mr. Khadar's defense team, as explained in this story on NPR. An interesting history of Mr. Khadar's life and eventual detention at Guantanamo can be read in a 2006 article in Rolling Stone; a summary of his legal history can be found on Human Rights First.

The U.S. Dept. of Defense, Military Commissions, has a website with court filings and documents pertaining to Mr. Khadr's and Mr. Hamdan's cases, as well as other Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial.  The Military Commissions Act and Military Commissions Manual can also be found here.

The Yale Law Library has several recently published book on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Guantanamo detainees:

• Honor Bound: Inside the Guantanamo Trials by Kyndra Miller Rotunda (2008)
• Bush, the Detainees, and the Constitution: The Battle over Presidential Power in the War on Terror by Howard Ball (2007)
  
• Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration's Unlawful Responses in the "War" on Terror by Jordan J. Paust (2007)

We also have interesting historical works on military commissions in the U.S.:

• Constitutional Limitation on Trials by Military Commissions by Harold Loeb (1943) (microfiche)
• Military Commissions for the Trial of Citizens: A Letter to the Attorney General of the United States by John H. James, Jr. (1860) (microfiche and MOML)
• An Argument to Establish the Illegality of Military Commissions in the United States, and Especially of the One Organized for the Trial of the Parties Charged with Conspiring to Assassinate the Late President, and Others, Presented to that Commission, on Monday, the 19th of June, 1865 by Reverdy Johnson, one of the counsel of Mrs. Surratt (1865)

There are several online, free research guides pertaining to the Military Commissions Act of 2006:

• Commentary: The Military Commissions Act and Habeas Corpus
• National Security Law Research

Recently I wrote that The Hague Academy of International Law's Recueil des Cours de l'Academie de la Haye was online with free browsing but at the time the Yale Law Library had not yet purchased a subscription to the full-text. 

Today I am happy to write that we have subscribed and you can now browse, search and access all the full-text articles.

"The Academy is a prestigious international institution for the study and teaching of Public and Private International Law and related subjects. The work of the Hague Academy receives the support and recognition of the UN. Its purpose is to encourage a thorough and impartial examination of the problems arising from international relations in the field of law. The courses deal with the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject, including legislation and case law.  All courses at the Academy are, in principle, published in the language in which they were delivered in the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law.

You can also access our complete print collection in the Yale Law Library on L1, Call No. KZ 3092 .R43.  

NPR reported this morning on Spain's battle to reclaim the treasure from a sunken Spanish vessel recovered in international waters in the Atlantic Ocean by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, FL.  The 19th century shipwreck contained some 17 tons in silver coins, cuff links and other personal items, and other artifacts; it may be the most valuable treasure ever discovered.  Exact details of the discovery have yet to be revealed.

A Federal District Court in Tampa is reviewing Spain's claim to the treasure that Odyssey recovered.  Spain insists that Odyssey's claim to the warship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes is immoral and illegal.  Spain compares the Nuestra Señora site to the grave sites of Gettysburg and the U.S.S. Arizona, as the sinking of Nuestra Señora precipitated Spain's entry into the Napoleonic wars.  Odyssey maintains, however, that they found no vessel and no human remains, just the cargo, and there is nothing to prove that it is the cargo of La Senora. In PACER, the federal court's password-protected electronic filing database (which is available free to the public in several federal depository libraries), you can review court filings for this case (8:07-cv-00614-SDM-MAP) as well as several others in which the Kingdom of Spain has filed a claim (ask a reference librarian for assistance if needed). 

So just what is the law pertaining to sunken treasures?  Finders keepers?  Return to rightful owner? 

The Yale Law Library has several books pertaining to the law of sunken treasure and cultural patrimony.  See, for example, Legal Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National and International Perspectives.  This book compares the laws, traditions, and perspectives of various countries, including the United States and Spain.  Note the Subject Headings at the bottom of the record: Cultural property -- Protection -- Law and legislation; Shipwrecks; Salvage; Treasure-trove; Underwater archaeology -- Law and legislation. Click on any of them to find more works pertaining to that topic. 

In comparison, see, The Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National Perspectives in Light of the UNESCO Convention 2001, for an international law focus and analysis.  Under the Subject Heading, underwater archaeology - law and legislation, you will find books in several languages other than English, including French German, Spanish, Russian and Italian.  Admiralty law also comes into play, specifically the Supplementary Admiralty Rules.  See also, Admiralty and Maritime Law, available in print and electronically.

There are several international law databases you might try as well to find case law and law review articles.  See our Foreign and International Resources page for the plethora of electronic resources at your fingertips, or ask a reference librarian for assistance.

Joe Hodnicki, Associate Director for Library Operations at the University of Cincinnatti Law Library, has written and excellent and informative documentary history of Israel on his Law Librarian Blog

Cyclone Nargis has thrust Myanmar into the public spotlight, as pressure increases to allow foreign aid to help cyclone victims. 

In February, Myanmar had announced its intention to hold a democratic referendum on a draft constitution this month, and to hold democratic elections in 2010. Immediately prior to the cyclone, on May 2, 2008, the U.N. had taken official notice of Myanmar's intent and encouraged an open process.  However, today the U.N. is urging Myanmar to delay this process. 

Myanmar is being monitored by the United Nations for human rights violations. On March 18, 2008, the UN Security Council held a meeting during which Ibrahim Gambari, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Myanmar, reported on his March 6 - 10, 2008 visit to Myanmar. Mr. Kyaw Tint Swe, the government representative from Myanmar, was present and also spoke at the meeting.  The meeting was transcribed in S.PV/5854, the provisional record of the public briefing.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has spoken many times to the human rights situation in Myanmar. Most recently, on March 28, 2008, the Council adopted resolution A/HRC/7/L.36 wherein the Council strongly deplored the "ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Myanmar" and extended the mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.  In a separate but related resolution A/HRC/7/L.37, the HRC, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolutions 1992/58 and 2005/10 of 14 April 2005, extended for one year the the Special Rapporteur's mandate, and urged, inter alia, the Government of Myanmar to "cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur and to respond favourably to his requests to visit the country and to provide him with all information and access to relevant bodies and institutions necessary to enable him to fulfill his mandate effectively."

Watch the U.N. Human Rights Council, 7th Session UN Webcast on the two resolutions: the "Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" (A/HRC/7/L.36), and "Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" (A/HRC/7/L.37). both from March 28, 2008 at the Palais de Nations in Geneva. See also, an archived video of "The Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" from October 2, 2007 at the Palais de Nations in Geneva.

Find Security Council and other UN documents related to Myanmar on the website of the Security Council Report - Myanmar.  SCR is an NGO headquartered in New York City.

The Yale Law Library collects human rights and interdisciplinary materials pertaining to Myanmar; they are cataloged and located with other human rights publications or social science materials on the Upper East Side rather than in the Myanmar/Burmese legal collection (KNL) on the Lower East Side.  If you conduct a Morris Subject Heading search: Human Rights - Burma, you'll return 26 hits. You can then sort Newest First and you'll find several books written in the last few years, including a 2008 publication entitled Promoting Human Rights in Burma: A Critique of Western Sanctions Policy.

The Yale Law Library has a 2005 volume of Myanmar Laws, our most current compilation of laws from Myanmar. This is an English translation of the yearbook of Myanmar laws originally published in Burmese. You will find older materials if you do a Subject Heading search on Morris: Laws - Burma. Note that the laws of Myanmar are still cataloged by Library of Congress using Burma rather than Myanmar.  Why is that?  During a 2006 interview, Barbara Tillett, chief of the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office, explained: "The Library of Congress is the national library for the United States and to some extent we reflect US policy (for example using Burma not Myanmar)." Read the BBC's take on this issue.  You will see that our collection of law from Myanmar is quite small; there is not a lot being published nor do we heavily collect from this country. See our Country-by-Country guide to foreign legal research: Myanmar, for more print and electronic resources.

For assistance researching Myanmar law, please contact the reference team.

 

The Brandeis Institute for International Judges (BIIJ) "provides international judges with the opportunity to meet and discuss critical issues concerning the theory and practice of international justice. Institutes are held approximately every 18 months, bringing together judges serving on international courts and tribunals around the world to reflect on both the philosophical aspects and practical challenges of their work. The most recent Institute was held from July 23-28, 2007, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA. The next Institute is scheduled for January 4-9, 2009, in Trinidad."

The BIIJ website has reports for each of the previous institutes along with a group photo of each year's participants. The BIIJ is just one of the Brandeis Programs in International Justice and Society, which is part of the The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University.

NPR reported this morning that Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein, begins trial today for the execution of forty-two food merchants in 1992. Aziz, 72, has been in prison for over 5 years and is challenging the charges.  In the Anfal Campaign Trial, Gen. Ali Hassan Majeed, aka Chemical Ali for his use of poisonous gas against villagers, has already been sentenced to death by hanging for the mass killings of Kurds during the Sadaam era.  Here you can find an English translation of the Anfal Campaign Judgment.  Of course, Saddam Hussein was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on December 30, 2006.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal, also known as the Iraqi High Tribunal or the Special Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), was initially created in 2003 by the Statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (also found here), issued by the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority and enacted by the Iraqi Governing Council.  Due to legitimacy questions raised as a result of the Tribunal being established by an occupying force, the Iraqi Interim Government passed a new statute (pdf) in 2005 creating the current Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT).  The SICT, like its predecessor, is an independent tribunal located in Baghdad devoted to the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and the leaders of his regime for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and other crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. 

The Law Library of Congress has an excellent website on the trial of Saddam Hussein.  The site includes primary documents and secondary resources pertaining to Saddam Hussein's trial, the creation of the Special Tribunal and appeal, and the laws, treaties, and resolutions related to the Tribunal and relevant trials.   

The Yale Law Library has many books written on the Hussein trial, the Tribunal, and Iraq generally.  See, for example, Saddam on Trial: Understanding and Debating the Iraqi High Tribunal.  Also try a Subject Heading serach: Hussein, Saddam. All Iraqi foreign law is classified under KMJ and can be found on the Lower East Side.  For electronic resources pertaining to Iraqi law, see our Country-by-Country guide to legal research.  Finally, for research assistance, don't hesitate to contact the reference team.

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, established on January 19, 1981 and located in the Hague, was created in an effort to resolve the crisis between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America arising from the detention of 52 United States nationals at the United States Embassy in Tehran which commenced in November 1979, and the subsequent freeze of Iranian assets by the United States of America.

The Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide claims of United States nationals against Iran and of Iranian nationals against the United States which arise out of:

• debts, contracts, expropriations or other measures affecting property rights;
  
• certain "official claims" between the two Governments relating to the purchase and sale of goods and services;
  
• disputes between the two Governments concerning the interpretation or performance of the Algiers Declarations; and,
  
• certain claims between United States and Iranian banking institutions.

The Official website of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal is in both English and Persian.  It contains background information, governing documents, and a searchable database of tribunal decisions, awards, and other documents.  You must register for the database; it is free and login information will be emailed to you within a week or so.

Yale Law Library also has the complete collection of decisions and awards in the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal Reports - KZ238.I7 I73 on L1.  We also have monographs on L1 analyzing the tribunal and the decisions of the tribunal.  See, for example: 

• The Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at 25: the cases everyone needs to know for investor-state & international arbitration - KZ238.I7 D72 2007
• The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the process of international claims resolution: a study by the Panel on State Responsibility of the American Society of International Law - KZ 238.I7 I733 2000
• UNCITRAL arbitration rules as interpreted and applied: selected problems in light of the practice of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal - KZ238.I7 P45 1994
  

On February 14, 2005, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 other were killed in a bomb attack in Beirut.  The act was immediately condemned as a "terrorist bombing" in a formal statement by the President of the United Nations Security Council.  Shortly thereafter, the U.N. appointed an international independent investigation Commission.  About one year later, on May 29, 2006, pursuant to Security Council resolution 1664, the United Nations and the Lebanese Republic negotiated an agreement on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Further, pursuant to Security Council resolution 1757 (Annex and Statute included) of May 30, 2007, the U.N. Security Council held, inter alia, that the Statute of the Special Tribunal, would enter into force on June 10, 2007.

The U.N. Special Tribunal website has a complete list of documents relating to the creation of the Special Tribunal.  There is also a timeline of events and a factsheet explaining the procedures and applicable law of the Special Tribunal.

Lebanese criminal law relating to the prosecution and punishment for acts of terrorism and crimes and offenses against life and personal integrity will apply to the Special Tribunal; the death penalty and forced labor have been excluded as possible punishments for those found guilty.

The Law Library of Congress has created a report, the Hariri Assassination Legal Commentary, also available in pdf, that "explains some of the legal issues relevant to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon by discussing:

• the jurisdictional basis for international judicial bodies;
• examining the jurisdictional reach of mixed tribunals;
• exploring the legal nature of the February 14, 2005 bombing; and
• identifying a number of legal questions for which the final answers may shape radically the jurisdictional reach of international criminal law."

Ulrich Mans and Lisette Sinkeler of the Hague Center for Strategic Studies express their opinion on the Special Tribunal (also in pdf).  The report notes that eight anti-Syrian politicians have been killed since 2004, and acknowledges that the Hague will become, for Lebanese and Syrians, a place of "public accusation of the most influential elites in Syria."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad repeatedly denies that his country had anything to do with the murder of Prime Minister Hariri. (See, CNN interview, among many other news reports in the BBC, NYT, and others). 

Security Council Report, a non-profit working with Columbia University's Center on International Organization, has monthly reports on Lebanon as well as key U.N. documents referenced in their reports.

 The Library of Congress has launched a series of multinational, comparative legal studies on the rights of children.  

"Children’s Rights examines sixteen nations, across five continents: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). For each nation, the study focuses on the domestic laws and policies that affect child health and social welfare, education and special needs, child labor and exploitation, sale and trafficking of children, and juvenile justice. Children’s Rights also lists which pertinent international treaties the nation has ratified and implemented."

The reports, as well as an overview (providing a summary of relevant global and regional legal instruments, including human-rights related instruments and international agreements on child protection and placement), are available in both html and pdf format, with footnotes and hyperlinks.  The overview and the country reports, as they become available, can be accessed from the project's main page.

Finally!  It's online and searchable!  The Hague Academy of International Law's Recueil des Cours de l'Academie de la Haye.  One can search this entire collection of international law articles by volume, year, author, or keyword.  Although we do not subscribe to full-text access to the articles, once you have found a relevant article, you can locate it in our complete print collection in the Yale Law Library on L1, Call No. KZ 3092 .R43.   

Don't know where to find the criminal code for the Ivory Coast?  Or jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court of South Africa?  Or a case decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights?  Try the F/I Research Resources page.  This page will link you to primary and secondary sources to help you get started on your research.  The Country-by-Country Guide will point you to valuable legal research guides for each country in the world.  You will also find annotated lists of foreign and international databases, both open-access and subscription-based.  For specialized assistance with your research, please do not hesitate to contact Teresa Miguel or any of our reference librarians.